1. Field of Invention
The subject carton for ice cream, ice milk, sherbet, mellorine and like products relates, of course, to the general field of ice cream cartons. It is specific, however, to an ice cream carton which can be produced on a milk carton machine which operates from a continuous web with a high speed rotary printing and rotary cutting.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
Typical ice cream cartons are in almost all super markets. The package is usually susceptible of being opened from the top for ease in scooping out the product. In addition, the ends are usually closed in a fashion that they can be reopened for scraping all of the contents, or alternatively, slicing the ice cream.
In the typical manufacture of the typical prior art carton, rolls of paper board are first cut into large specific sheets. The sheets are then put in precisely piled stacks. The sheets are thereafter passed one or more times through a printing press which applies the desired graphics. Depending upon the facility, the sheets are sometimes stored for quite awhile while each printing pass sets. Sometimes, winding and restacking is required to facilitate ink setting and to provide a suitable pile to feed the cutter.
Thereafter, the printed sheets are scored and cut to the required individual carton size, and superfluous board is stripped from the carton blanks. After stripping, the individual cartons may optionally be coated. Finally, the side seam or glue flap is sealed on a gluer and they are shipped in knock-down fashion to a dairy to erect, fill, and seal.
It will be appreciated that when multiple (e.g., 4, 9, 16) cartons are printed on the sheets just described, a serious marketing planning difficulty is created. A determination is required of the ratio of the many brands, products, and flavors. Consequently, if a particular customer suddenly has a run on one specific product and needs additional cartons for it, he may have to accept production of excess cartons printed for other unneeded flavors or products and store these for uncertain subsequent usage. Alternatively, he may order a more costly special run of just the needed items, but the cost of this is often prohibitive. This is caused by the cost of time, labor, printing plates, ink, and board required to change over the press. This all adds to the cost and difficulties of using the known type of ice cream carton.
On the other hand, milk carton blanks are produced in a single continuous high speed operation from a roll of board in which a web is run through for printing, scoring, cutting and stripping all in precise registration. Only one additional operation is required, in which the side seam is sealed, to have the carton ready to ship in knock-down fashion to a dairy.
The continuous rotary operation on a web enables much higher production rates than the ordinary sheet fed or reciprocating type of carton printing, scoring, and cutting as described with regard to the prior art above. Further, it is much less costly and time-consuming to change this equipment to print different copy. In this environment of the utilization of milk carton machines, the nature of the invention will be better understood as set forth in the summary below.